Amazon Echo Dot With Clock (4th Generation)

amazon Amazon Echo Dot With Clock (4th Generation) reviews

The fourth-generation Amazon Echo Dot With Clock is an ideal smart speaker for your desk or nightstand, with a small LED display that makes a big difference in usability.

What time is it? It’s time for Alexa! Amazon’s fourth-generation Echo Dot With Clock smart speaker takes the new spherical, attractive Echo Dot and puts a digital clock on the front for $59.99. You’ll still want the larger $99.99 Echo speaker for room-filling sound, but if you want the Dot to be used as a kitchen timer or an alarm clock in the bedroom, this is the buy.

A new look

Like the $49.99 fourth-generation Echo Dot, the Dot With Clock is a 3.9-inch sphere in blue or white (the regular, clockless model also comes in dark gray). The top of the sphere has buttons for volume up, down, action, and microphone mute, and it glows a soft blue along the bottom when it’s listening. A power connector and 3.5mm audio output is located on the back of the speaker.

The extra feature here over the standard Echo Dot is a white LED clock, showing alarms, outdoor temperature, and any active timers. If you tap the top of the Dot, it will snooze your alarm. You can ask Alexa to dim the watch or turn it off if it’s near your bed and you prefer to sleep in total darkness. The simple act of adding a clock to the speaker makes it much more visually useful and easily worth the extra $10.

Alexa

As an Echo speaker, the Echo Dot With Clock uses Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant. Just say “Alexa” and give the command, and the speaker will do his best to accommodate you. Alexa can answer general questions, control smart home devices, make calls, make voice calls to other Alexa devices, and play music from supported streaming services, including Amazon. Music, Apple Music, iHeartRadio, Pandora, Spotify, and TuneIn. Any other music sources will require Bluetooth streaming from your phone or other devices.

Alexa is an effective voice assistant with more third-party skills than the competition, but its syntax can be a bit stiff. You may find yourself needing to use a very specific language for Alexa to do what you want instead of the Google Assistant (on the Nest Mini and Nest Audio speakers), which is a bit more conversational.

Sound performance

As for the base model Dot, this is mostly an aesthetic change from last year’s model. The Dot With Clock’s sonic capabilities are the same, and it still has the same 1.6-inch driver – suitable for bedside use, but not what you want as the main speaker in your living room. Of course, you can better attach speakers via the 3.5mm output jack.

The Echo Dot With Clock has identical audio capabilities to the standard Echo Dot. It’s a small speaker with little power and almost no bass response to talk. It’s heavily balanced towards the highs and mids, with little low-frequency presence to immobilize it. That’s better sound quality than what you’ll get from a standard clock radio, but it’s not enough to fill a room with full sound. However, it works well for podcasts.

Good time to upgrade?

The Echo Dot With Clock is still our favorite cheap smart speaker. Amazon’s tiny $24.99 Echo Flex comes with a clock for an extra $15, but the device doesn’t look like a bedside alarm clock; it looks like a plug-in air cooler. Amazon also has the $89.99 Echo Show 5 if you want a richer watch experience with a fully functional video display (and we’ve seen it on sale for significantly less). But the Echo Dot With Clock is a great, affordable way to access Amazon’s Alexa voice for information and smart home control, even if they’re not suitable for use as speakers.

Advantages

Good price

Simple to use

Display time, alarm, and temperature

Defect

There is only one aesthetic change compared to the previous model

Weak bass

where can you get a Amazon Echo Dot With Clock (4th Generation) online

Echo (4th Gen) | With premium sound, smart home hub, and Alexa | Twilight Blue: Buy it now

All-new Echo Dot (4th Gen) with clock – Glacier White – bundle with Sengled Bluetooth bulb (Certified for Humans product): Buy it now